About Jeremy Owen Turner

Jeremy Owen Turner is currently a PhD candidate at Simon Fraser University's School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT) in Vancouver, Canada.
Since 1996, Turner has developed an international portfolio as a performance artist, music composer, media-arts historian and art-critic within virtual worlds and video games. As Wirxli Flimflam, Turner co-founded the avatar performance art group, Second Front in 2006 and has also composed for the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse (2007-2008).
Turner's academic history includes an MA about avatar-design in Second Life (2010) and an interdisciplinary BA that focused on both Art-History and Music Composition (1997).
Turner's current PhD research speculates on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) discipline's relationship with aesthetics. This research explores developing visual and behavioral design heuristics for virtual agents (automated characters/NPCs) in virtual worlds and video games. These heuristics are derived from some key scholars in the field of Aesthetic Philosophy, including Immanuel Kant.

I bite my lip as I hand my daughter Mia over to Frank, my partner. The urge to ‘snatch’ her back is overwhelming. I watch them both like a hawk, not resting for one moment. After what seems hours, but is in fact minutes, Mia is finally handed back to me. The next few days […]

The doctor walks into the recovery room, her smile hidden below her mask as she places the bundle of blankets into my arms and backs away. I look down at the bundle and as my eyes settle on my daughter Mia’s face, love overwhelms. I look up at my partner, Frank, and see he feels […]

How do Second Life families start? How do they get together? How do they grow? Let’s say one wanted to be part of a family in Second Life – a daughter, mother, auntie or sister – how would one go about doing that? Take my friend Gwen and me for instance: We love each other […]

Some visitors to this blog may know that I was recently the maid of honour at my friend’s wedding. Among many new discoveries, one of the most remarkable things about that experience is that the bride has a huge family in Second Life. And, her family is complete with parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, cousins… […]